What's wrong with my XP partition?

This is a discussion on What's wrong with my XP partition? within the Tech Board forums, part of the Community Boards category; When booting Windows XP, it keeps rebooting b4 i can get to the desktop
I originally thought it was a ...

What's wrong with my XP partition?

When booting Windows XP, it keeps rebooting b4 i can get to the desktop

I originally thought it was a corrupt system file but then...
When using Ubuntu, If I try to access the XP partition through nautilus, it freezes. I can look through the files using the terminal but when I tried copying files over to an external HDD, the terminal freezes as well. The same thing happens when I tried this using the Ubuntu Live CD.

Sounds like your disk is bad. Have you tried a scandisk on this partition? It's a start. Failing that, there are some good third part disk scanning and recovery apps available that are sometimes able to help. Also try turning off all HD related features in your BIOS, such as Volume Shadowing.

Does any file copy cause lock or just certain ones? Try only a single small copy to test. Other things I have attempted with the occasional (though rare) success, is to copy the "broken" files to another location on the same partition, then copy them off. Oddly, it has worked before, though I can't imagine why.

Here's another very good scenario: you get a blue screen.
By default, Windows simply reboots in case of these errors. Idiotic, I know.
You can try pressing F8 at boot and disable automatic restarts and also last known good configuration.
Hope it helps.

Another problem that arised at the same time: My monitor shuts off randomly. Windows XP was working fine until this started. The first time this happened, I was on XP and I thought the computer just froze so I rebooted it and that's when the first problem started.

When the monitor dies, the light on it's power button is still blue and normally when it goes to sleep, the light turns yellow. If I turn off the monitor, wait a few minutes and turn it back on, it will work properly for up to 2 seconds and turn off again. the buttons on the monitor (menu, select, auto, etc.) don't work either.

I thought I had this one taken care of but now it's happening on Ubuntu as well. Could this be somehow related to the former?

From here I would guess it could be mobo issues, 2 components dying near the same time. Granted it may work under ubuntu, but Linux in general is known for not stressing the system as much as Windows, which under lowered loads your mobo can still function decently, definitely if you can test your components in another computer, HD and monitor and possibly graphics card.

I don't have another machine available to test my HD with and my computer's graphics card is built into the mobo. Is there any other way to test it? Is there a possibility that this isn't hardware related?

As for the monitor, ill try a different outlet the next time it dies on me. It's been working properly since last night though.

The "WIRING FAULT BUILDING" light on the power bar is on, what does this mean?

This is telling you that you've found your problem. There is likely something wrong with the wiring in your house on that circuit. Either something isn't grounding properly, or a ground is hot, or possibly polarity is reversed on the circuit. All of these are Bad Things. If you're moderatly electrically handy and have a voltometer, you can check these things out yourself. If you aren't sure, or maybe just don't like the idea of shoving metal prongs in your household outlet, call a professional electrician or a friend you don't like.

Oh, and I would very certainly not plug anything sensitive (like your computer) into that outlet until you get this resolved. No ground or charged ground could potentially fry your system.

Ah.. thanks. The red light has been on for the last 2 years and I've never bothered to read the text it was labeled with. I'm surprised my comp was working properly all this time. Is this the cause of both problems (i.e. booting XP and the monitor) or just the monitor problem?